"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. "

This despite the venomous attacks by newts and other such creatures …There are many books and references available to document each point.*

*20 punti/pointsPrepared by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD*1- Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed. Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened. *

2- This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws. It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics*

3- The original inhabitants of the Western part of the Fertile Crescent were called Canaanites and the original language was called Aramaic which Jesus spoke (he was born in the country called then Palestine and thus he was Palestinian)*

4- The old Aramaic language gave rise to derived languages including Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew and this language group is called Semetic languages*

5- Arabic alphabet evolved in Southern Canaan (today’s Jordan and Palestine) while the Latin alphabet evolved in Northern Canaan (Phoenicia, present day Lebanon and Syria). The Alphabet used in Europe today came from our part of the world.*

6- The people of Southern Canaan including Palestine endured many invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc). *

8- Palestine was always multi-cultural, multi-religious society despite attempts to homogenize it in certain periods (e.g. the Crusaders killed and exiled Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other sects).*

9- Jews of today, like Christians and Muslims of today come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They are thus genetically (biologically) heterogeneous.*

10- Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. For hundreds of years Palestinians of various religions lived in relative harmony.*

11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe. Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights. Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists. There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine.*

12- Zionism started in the mid 19th century with formation of the “Jewish Colonization Association” and became an international movement in 1897 at the first World Zionist Congress. To achieve its goals, its leaders advocated transferring the native non-Jewish Palestinians.*

13- The United States and other Western countries under influence of a Zionist lobby pushed for the creation of a “Jewish state” of Israel in Palestine despite the wishes of the native people. *

14- Between 1947-1949, 530 Palestinian villages and towns were completely destroyed and their people made refugees. This process of forcing Palestinians out of their land continued in other forms since the founding of Israel in May 1948. Today 70% of the 11 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people.*

15- Current day Israel has a set of discriminatory laws that fit the descriptions given in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Every month, the Israeli Knesset takes on more such racist laws.*

16- In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank (including the old city of Jerusalem) and Gaza strip. Together these two areas are 22% of historic Palestine. Israel began immediately to build Jewish colonial settlements in these Palestinian lands. Contrary to International law, there are now over 200 settlements on our lands housing over 0.5 million Jewish colonial settlers.*

17- Israel has built walls around the remaining Palestinian enclaves (ghettos, people warehouses, cantons, reservations) and isolated them from each other and from the rest of Palestine. These walls separate Palestinians from their lands, from other Palestinians, from schools, from hospitals etc. As an example, the Bethlehem district houses 180,000 natives, some 50,000 of us living there are refugees from 1948 period. All of us are restricted now to develop and live on only 13% of the original Bethlehem district size. 87% of the district is now under control of Israeli settlements, military bases, closed military zones etc. The Bethlehem people are isolated behind a wall and even Jerusalem (6 km away) is off-limits to us.*

18- Colonialism involves violence. Over 80 massacres were committed against native Palestinians. Over 60,000 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers. This is ten times more than the number of Israeli civilians (most colonial settlers) killed by Palestinians. Palestinians resisted colonialism over the past 130 years mostly by using non-violent popular resistance something not widely discussed in the Western countries because of attempts to vilify the victims. *

19- Palestinians and other Arab countries in conflict with Zionism have been “unreasonably reasonable” as one diplomat described it. We accept all elements of International law` and all UN (United Nations) resolutions on the issue. Israel by contrast, violated over 60 UN Security Council resolutions and over 200 UN General Assembly Resolutions. Without the USA using its veto power to shield Israel from International law at the UN SC, the number would have been doubled.*

20- We Palestinians demand and are struggling for our right to return and to self-determination. We call for a democratic pluralistic state for people of all religions in our historic homeland of Palestine. We call for equality and justice. People in Europe and around the world can support us by using education, by coming to visit us, and by Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS). This is a collective human struggle similar to what happened in challenging apartheid in South Africa. *

This despite the venomous attacks by newts and other such creatures …There are many books and references available to document each point.*

Am I a “newt”, AussieOI? Probably not because I know that “Palestine is very real”. It’s the myth of a separate “Palestinian people” that I, Mr. Zahir Muhsein, and many of the Arab leaders disagree with:

Prior to partition, Palestinian Arabs did not view themselves as having a separate identity. When the First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds.

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine: “There is no such country as Palestine! ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria.”

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations echoed this view in a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947, which said Palestine was part of the Province of Syria and the Arabs of Palestine did not comprise a separate political entity. A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: “It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria.”

Princeton University Prof. Philip Hitti, testified against partition before the Anglo-American Committee in 1946, he said: “There is no such thing as ‘Palestine’ in history, absolutely not.”

So yes, AussieOi I agree with Zahir Muhsein, Prof. Philip Hitti, First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, and Ahmed Shuqeiri, who later became the chairman of the PLO that the “Palestinian” people were created “to oppose Zionism”.

20 punti/pointsPrepared by Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD*1- Palestine is the Western part of the Fertile Crescent: an area that includes Palestine , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria , and Iraq . In this Fertile Crescent the first human agriculture developed. Here the first domestication of animals (e.g. goats, donkeys, camels) and plants (e.g. wheat, barley, chickpeas, lentils, olives) happened. *

We learn from scriptures that Adam learned animal husbandry and farming which he handed down to his posterity. After the flood Noah, who landed on Mt Ararat Turkey, would have begun farming and raising animals soon after leaving the Ark so this makes sense if you don’t have the belief in the Bible as we do.

2- This is also where civilization began including development of the first alphabet (by Phoenician Canaanites) and the first laws. It was where we first developed sciences like astronomy, engineering, and mathematics*

Scriptures tell us Adam was taught and wrote a book of remembrance and was given laws and commandments from God. The Adamic language and the laws were handed down through his lineage until it was confounded at the Tower of Babel. Phoenician was just one of the many languages that came from the pure Adamic tongue spoken by our first Parents.

3- The original inhabitants of the Western part of the Fertile Crescent were called Canaanites and the original language was called Aramaic which Jesus spoke (he was born in the country called then Palestine and thus he was Palestinian)*

This would be the language of Shem the righteous son of Noah or Sem as in ‘Semitic’.

4- The old Aramaic language gave rise to derived languages including Syriac, Arabic, and Hebrew and this language group is called Semetic languages

5- Arabic alphabet evolved in Southern Canaan (today’s Jordan and Palestine ) while the Latin alphabet evolved in Northern Canaan ( Phoenicia , present day Lebanon and Syria ). The Alphabet used in Europe today came from our part of the world.*

6- The people of Southern Canaan including Palestine endured many invasions of armies with nearly 15 times that local people were ruled by kings or emperors (Persian, Roman, Umayyad, Abbasid, Israelite etc). **

The term “Palestine” is believed to have referred to the Philistines, who in the 12th Century B.C., settled along the Mediterranean coast of what are now Israel and the Gaza Strip. In the second century AD, after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans gave this land the name Palaestina to Judea in an attempt to minimize Jewish identification with the land of Israel. The Arabic word Filastin is derived from this Latin name.

Scriptures tells us that Shem settled the land and built the city of Salem, we call it Jerusalem today. God gave this land to Abraham through a covenant which then passed down to Isaac and Jacob/Israel (late 1800s BC). I am sure the Phoenicians and Canaanites, who were also in the Holy Land and worshiped pagan gods, were not consulted in the matter and did not agree to this covenant God made with Abraham. I wonder if they were told of this arrangement by Abraham and his legal heirs?

We all know the story of how Joseph was sold into Egypt and how the Family of Jacob/Israel ended up there around 1732 BC.

The Israelites, led by Joshua, entered the Holy Land around 1300 B.C. They lived as a tribal confederation under judges for 400 years until being united under the first monarch, King Saul. The second king, David, established Jerusalem as the capital around 1000 B.C. David’s son, Solomon, built the Temple soon thereafter and consolidated the military, administrative and religious functions of the kingdom. The nation was divided under Solomon’s son, with the northern kingdom (Israel) lasting until 722 B.C., when the Assyrians destroyed it, and the southern kingdom (Judah) surviving until the Babylonian conquest in 586 B.C. The Jewish people enjoyed brief periods of sovereignty afterward until most Jews were finally driven from their homeland in 135 AD by the Romans.

After Rome and Byzantium came the invasion by the Islamic Arabs who established the Rashidun Caliphate throughout the Middle East, Caucasus, Persia, Asia and North Africa.

Christianity did not “evolve” but was given to us by God’s Son, Jesus Christ. ‘Rabbinical Judaism’ did evolve or apostatize from the scriptures, teachings and ordinances given to Moses and the Israelite prophets through the centuries.

Islam was invented by Mohammed who barrowed some teachings of Judaism and even Christianity.

8- Palestine was always multi-cultural, multi-religious society despite attempts to homogenize it in certain periods (e.g. the Crusaders killed and exiled Jews, Muslims, and Christians of other sects).*

Such as when God commanded the Israelites to cleans the land of the Canaanites and Phoenicians. Also when Islam was spread into this area by either conversion or the sword through jihad.

9- Jews of today, like Christians and Muslims of today come from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They are thus genetically (biologically) heterogeneous.*

Science has proven that the Jews are NOT “(biologically) heterogeneous”.

"Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level... The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora." Hammer, M. F.; A. J. Redd, E. T. Wood, M. R. Bonner, H. Jarjanazi, T. Karafet, S. Santachiara-Benerecetti, A. Oppenheim, M. A. Jobling, T. Jenkins, H. Ostrer, and B. Bonné-Tamir (May 9 2000). "Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

10- Before the wave of European Jewish immigration, Palestinians were of various religions: about 85% Muslim, 10% Christian, 5% Jewish and others. For hundreds of years Palestinians of various religions lived in relative harmony.*

11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe. Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights. Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists. There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine .*

12- Zionism started in the mid 19th century with formation of the “Jewish Colonization Association” and became an international movement in 1897 at the first World Zionist Congress. To achieve its goals, its leaders advocated transferring the native non-Jewish Palestinians.*

What happened in the “mid 19th century” that could have spurred the dispersed Jews to begin to desire a return to the Holy Land ? Latter Day prophets and Apostles have testified that because of Elder Orson Hyde’s dedicatory prayer in Jerusalem the Spirit touched the Jewish people to have a desire to return to the Holy Land, to inspire politicians from England and America to facilitate their return, and for wealthy Jews to help by purchasing land in “Palestine”.

13- The United States and other Western countries under influence of a Zionist lobby pushed for the creation of a “Jewish state” of Israel in Palestine despite the wishes of the native people. *

God did inspire these events.

Who inspired the Arabs to oppose partitioning “Palestine”, not share the Holy Land with the Jews who were buying up land and settling there, and caused hatred and riots to oppose the Jewish settlers which eventually led to over 60 years of wars and bloodshed? The answer starts with an S and ends with an ‘n’.

14- Between 1947-1949, 530 Palestinian villages and towns were completely destroyed and their people made refugees. This process of forcing Palestinians out of their land continued in other forms since the founding of Israel in May 1948. Today 70% of the 11 million Palestinians in the world are refugees or displaced people.

*

It’s funny that Mazin Qumsiyeh leaves out what caused the “destruction of villages” and the refugees “Between 1947-1949”.

The UN tried to get the Jews and Arabs to live peacefully side by side through a “two State solution” by dividing the Holy Land and creating a nation for the Arabs in ‘Palestine’ and one for the Jews. The Arabs refused and launched a war of extinction and attempted to “drive the Jews into the sea” and take their land from them which they had legally bought. In preparation, thousands of Arabs left their homes and villages temporarily in the hope of returning to reoccupy their land and that of the dead Jews. God and the Jews had a different end in mind and defended successfully their rights to live on the land they had purchased and settled.

At the armistice after the war that the Arabs had launched against the Jews, saw the creation of the nation of Israel with larger borders which usually happens when a defender wins a war against their larger aggressors. Wisely the new nation of Israel did not allow their enemies to reoccupy their land. These were the same people who tried to exterminate them and take THEIR land. They did allow those peaceful Arabs who did not leave to live in the new nation of Israel and enjoy the democratic freedoms they never had as Arabs living under Islamic law.

In 1949 Israel took in every single displaced Jew by the thousands after the War who had been ejected from the surrounding Arab countries in retaliation of losing the first War against Israel. On the other hand not one country accepted any of their Arab brothers into their countries as citizens but left their fellow Muslims in refugee camps and squalor!

15- Current day Israel has a set of discriminatory laws that fit the descriptions given in the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. Every month, the Israeli Knesset takes on more such racist laws.*

Myth

“Israel is one of the most open societies in the world. Out of a population of 6.7 million, about 1.3 million — 20 percent of the population — are non-Jews (approximately 1.1 million Muslims, 130,000 Christians and 100,000 Druze).

Arabs in Israel have equal voting rights; in fact, it is one of the few places in the Middle East where Arab women may vote. Arabs currently hold 8 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. Israeli Arabs have also held various government posts, including one who served as Israel's ambassador to Finland and the current deputy mayor of Tel Aviv. Oscar Abu Razaq was appointed Director General of the Ministry of Interior, the first Arab citizen to become chief executive of a key government ministry. Ariel Sharon's original cabinet included the first Arab minister, Salah Tarif, a Druze who served as a minister without portfolio. An Arab is also a Supreme Court justice.

Arabic, like Hebrew, is an official language in Israel. More than 300,000 Arab children attend Israeli schools. At the time of Israel's founding, there was one Arab high school in the country. Today, there are hundreds of Arab schools.

In 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court also ruled that the government cannot allocate land based on religion or ethnicity, and may not prevent Arab citizens from living wherever they choose.2a

The sole legal distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. This is to spare Arab citizens the need to take up arms against their brethren. Nevertheless, Bedouins have served in paratroop units and other Arabs have volunteered for military duty. Compulsory military service is applied to the Druze and Circassian communities at their own request.

Some economic and social gaps between Israeli Jews and Arabs result from the latter not serving in the military. Veterans qualify for many benefits not available to non-veterans. Moreover, the army aids in the socialization process.

On the other hand, Arabs do have an advantage in obtaining some jobs during the years Israelis are in the military. In addition, industries like construction and trucking have come to be dominated by Israeli Arabs.

Although Israeli Arabs have occasionally been involved in terrorist activities, they have generally behaved as loyal citizens. During the 1967, 1973 and 1982 wars, none engaged in any acts of sabotage or disloyalty. Sometimes, in fact, Arabs volunteered to take over civilian functions for reservists. During the outbreak of violence in the territories that began in September 2000, Israeli Arabs for the first time engaged in widespread protests with some violence.

The United States has been independent for almost 230 years and still has not integrated all of its diverse communities. Even today, 60 years after civil rights legislation was adopted, discrimination has not been eradicated. It should not be surprising that Israel has not solved all of its social problems in only 57 years.” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/myths/mf18.html

16- In 1967, Israel occupied the West Bank (including the old city of Jerusalem ) and Gaza strip. Together these two areas are 22% of historic Palestine . Israel began immediately to build Jewish colonial settlements in these Palestinian lands. Contrary to International law, there are now over 200 settlements on our lands housing over 0.5 million Jewish colonial settlers.*

Mazin Qumsiyeh again conveniently excludes the how Israel came to “occupy” the “West Bank” and Gaza. For a second time the Arab armies tried to “drive the Jews into the sea” in 1967 but failed. God was not done with Judah and had promised that they would occupy the Holy Land till Christ comes to save them from Gog and his armies in our future. Israel wisely took control of Judea from Jordan who had attacked them and uses it as a buffer against any more attacks by the Arabs. Down south Israel took control of Gaza from Egypt who had also attacked them and retrained it for the same reason. During the “Yom Kippur War” Egypt lost again and Israel kept control of the Sinai as a buffer against more Egyptian aggression.

17- Israel has built walls around the remaining Palestinian enclaves (ghettos, people warehouses, cantons, reservations) and isolated them from each other and from the rest of Palestine . These walls separate Palestinians from their lands, from other Palestinians, from schools, from hospitals etc. As an example, the Bethlehem district houses 180,000 natives, some 50,000 of us living there are refugees from 1948 period. All of us are restricted now to develop and live on only 13% of the original Bethlehem district size. 87% of the district is now under control of Israeli settlements, military bases, closed military zones etc. The Bethlehem people are isolated behind a wall and even Jerusalem (6 km away) is off-limits to us.*

The only reason Israel has built walls is to protect their citizens from the fanatical murderers in the Arab populations of Judea (West Bank). These walls and fences have saved lives of men women and children whom the terrorists target.

The “Palestinians” live in poverty because the PLO leaders siphon off any money they get from the UN and America and goes into weapons to kill Jews or into their Swiss bank accounts. Little of the money goes to build factories or infrastructure to help their own people. This is by design. How else do they build hatred for the Jews? Their plan to exterminate the Jews would fall apart if they were to become a peaceful and prosperous people who would live next to Israel? The “Palestinian” people are the true victims here, caught between the fanatics and Jihadists who are their leaders and the Jews who are only trying to protect their families from the cold blooded killers on the other side of the fence.

18- Colonialism involves violence. Over 80 massacres were committed against native Palestinians. Over 60,000 Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers. This is ten times more than the number of Israeli civilians (most colonial settlers) killed by Palestinians. Palestinians resisted colonialism over the past 130 years mostly by using non-violent popular resistance something not widely discussed in the Western countries because of attempts to vilify the victims. *

Again I feel for the “Palestinian” people who are used by the terrorists and Jihadists as human shields. I am sure most would love to live as their Arab brothers inside of Israel do, in peace and mutual commerce.

19- Palestinians and other Arab countries in conflict with Zionism have been “unreasonably reasonable” as one diplomat described it.

Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda, nor the surrounding Arab nations have guaranteed the right of Israel to exist. They all want Israel’s destruction and replaced by an Islamic government ruled by Sharia. All have said they want to either exterminate the Jews or have them leave the Middle East all together. To them THAT is “reasonable”.

We accept all elements of International law` and all UN (United Nations) resolutions on the issue. Israel by contrast, violated over 60 UN Security Council resolutions and over 200 UN General Assembly Resolutions. Without the USA using its veto power to shield Israel from International law at the UN SC, the number would have been doubled.*

That is because the UN is controlled and populated by nations who want the destruction of Israel or have bought into the myths of the “Palestinians” and the Jewish “Apartheid” state. UN resolutions are political documents issued by a body of nations which is prejudiced against the state of Israel.

Ezekiel talks about how when Gog attacks Israel they will have no friend in the world including us. Go figure.

20- We Palestinians demand and are struggling for our right to return and to self-determination. We call for a democratic pluralistic state for people of all religions in our historic homeland of Palestine .

This is one of the plans on eliminating the nation of Israel without a war. Have all of the “Palestinian refugees” and their ancestors return, take over the country through elections and turn it into an Islamic nation ruled by Sharia and the Qur’an. Neither the Jews of Israel nor their peaceful Arabs friends living there want this. They know what would happen to their freedoms if this occurred.

We call for equality and justice. People in Europe and around the world can support us by using education, by coming to visit us, and by Boycotts, Divestments, and Sanctions (BDS). This is a collective human struggle similar to what happened in challenging apartheid in South Africa . *

The first victim of the “Palestinian” movement is the truth. The second is the Palestinian people themselves.

BTW, AussieOI, Thanks for the discussion on the nation of Israel, Judah and the turmoil which is occurring in the world today. Your challenges have made me do more research and have helped my testimony grow of God’s dealings with His covenant people, the Jews. I am sure you feel differently. Debate does expand our knowledge if nothing else than what the other side thinks and believes. Thank You, My Friend.

OMD,Thank you for this thread. Its obvious that the libertarian ideology has also distorted the spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel. This is something that needs to be corrected or we will suffer the judgments of God.

"It is the terrorist organizations that must be ferreted out and brought down." -Gordon B. Hinkley

kingbmm wrote:OMD,Thank you for this thread. Its obvious that the libertarian ideology has also distorted the spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel. This is something that needs to be corrected or we will suffer the judgments of God.

i love your avatari love how it actually demonises Ron Paul, and the text repeats and confirms. truely poetic

thank him for what? spending hours finding words to fit a view that oppressing, murdering, humiliating and dispossessing a people is acceptable because WE lds have a scripture that says god will gather them and they will return to Jerusalem?

Please advise the following

What is this "libertarian ideology" you speka of?What are the "spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel"?How this libertarian ideology has "distorted" that?Why will we need to suffer the judgments of God? and what are these?

I read that GOD will bring all nations into (the state of) Israel and cleanse his peopleTHENm a remnant remaining will be saved by the return of HIS son, and they will see HIS wounds, and then accept him.I see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also

No, Iran is NOT building nuclear weapons and IF they were they would never use the offensively against Israel or America.

Wife Admits: Slain Iranian Nuke Scientist‘s ’Ultimate Goal Was the Annihilation of Israel’Posted on February 22, 2012 at 12:37pm by Sharona Schwartz

Mourners at Roshan's funeral in January chanted "Death to Israel" and "Death to America." (AP Photo/Mehr News Agency, Mojtaba Heidari)

As the U.S. and Europe place sanctions on Iran for the nuclear program suspected of having a military aim, Iran continues to insist its work is for peaceful purposes only. That claim will likely suffer a setback by an interview published Tuesday in the semi-official Fars News Agency.

TEHRAN (FNA)- The wife of Martyr Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan Behdast, who was assassinated by Mossad agents in Tehran in January, reiterated on Tuesday that her husband sought the annihilation of the Zionist regime wholeheartedly.

“Mostafa’s ultimate goal was the annihilation of Israel,” Fatemeh Bolouri Kashani told FNA on Tuesday.Bolouri Kashani also underlined that her spouse loved any resistance figure in his life who was willing to fight the Zionist regime and supported the rights of the oppressed Palestinian nation.

This is not the first time Iranian officials have been quoted calling for Israel’s destruction. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said that Israel “must be erased from the page of time” and that the solution to the Middle East conflict is the “elimination” of Israel.

The combination of these calls for annihilation along with the prospects of the Islamic Republic being one day armed with a doomsday weapon is at the core of the debate over whether Israel should attempt a military attack to thwart Iran’s nuclear progress.

AussieOiI see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also

Aussie, I have always thought that those who witness Christ’s appearance on Mt Olivet and the destruction of 4/5ths of the army of Gog would convert to Christ. How could they not? Even the 1/5th remaining would be converted and return to their home countries. Is this how the gospel goes to the Muslims? This event could be a uniting of the Jews and Muslims finally after centuries of hatred when both people find out they were wrong.

As far as Abraham's Covenant, my reading of the scriptures and Church literature shows that it went to Isaac and then Jacob. Do you have scriptures that may indicate otherwise?

kingbmm wrote:OMD,Thank you for this thread. Its obvious that the libertarian ideology has also distorted the spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel. This is something that needs to be corrected or we will suffer the judgments of God.

i love how it actually demonises Ron Paul, and the text repeats and confirms. truely poetic

thank him for what? spending hours finding words to fit a view that oppressing, murdering, humiliating and dispossessing a people is acceptable because WE lds have a scripture that says god will gather them and they will return to Jerusalem?

Please advise the following

What is this "libertarian ideology" you speka of?What are the "spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel"?How this libertarian ideology has "distorted" that?Why will we need to suffer the judgments of God? and what are these?

I read that GOD will bring all nations into (the state of) Israel and cleanse his peopleTHENm a remnant remaining will be saved by the return of HIS son, and they will see HIS wounds, and then accept him.I see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also

i love your avatar

Why thank you!

i love how it actually demonises Ron Paul, and the text repeats and confirms. truely poetic

Truth is truth Aussie.

What is this "libertarian ideology" you speka of?

You know very well the libertarian idealogy I speak of.

What are the "spiritual and temporal connection that we have with our brothers and sisters in Israel"?

Really?

"It is the terrorist organizations that must be ferreted out and brought down." -Gordon B. Hinkley

Watching from the sidelines, it is often impossible to discover the rational basis for many policies adopted by the Arab leaders. They often seem to be doing the very thing which is most likely to hurt them. However, in order to catch their point of view and grasp some semblance of understanding of how the Moslem-Arab mentality functions; it is essential to talk to them about their religion. It is amazing how much Arab policy is rooted in religious convictions. This is particularly true when it comes to the Moslem Arab's attitude toward the Jews.

The Moslems have their own version of Bible history but they accept the Bible in general terms as the inspired scripture antedating the Koran. Mohammed had frequent occasion to be with Jewish Rabbis and Catholic fathers and was extensively tutored by a monk named Bahira.9

Mohammed's writings therefore include teachings from both the Old and New Testaments. Theoretically, the followers of Mohammed (usually called Moslems or the people of Islam) look upon the Jews as fellow Semites (descendants of Shem) and "the people of the Book" -- the Bible. But I noted that the Moslems in Jerusalem present the Arabs as the "chosen people" rather than the Jews. They told us it all goes back to the time when Abraham offered up his son, Isaac, as a sacrifice.

According to the Moslem Arabs in Jerusalem, it was Ishmael, son of Hagar, and not Isaac who was offered up as a sacrifice. The Arabs say God intervened to save Ishmael's life because He intended to make a great people of Ishmael. They believe that since God saved Ishmael from being sacrificed it showed that he was preferred of the Lord and that his descendants, the Arabs, would be a preferred people.10

The sacrifice or offering of Abraham's son took place on Mount Moriah in Jerusalem. Both Jews and Arabs agree as to that. It is supposed to have taken place on the white outcropping of limestone which is beneath the famous and beautiful Moslem mosque called "The Dome of the Rock." This is located in the midst of the temple block in Old Jerusalem. It was the former crest of Mount Moriah and the walls of the square had to be built around the area to shore it up and make it possible for Solomon to build a temple on this sacred spot. Jewish tradition has it that this spot was once covered by the magnificent temple of Solomon and that this rock was actually in the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant rested.

It immediately can be seen what an explosive issue the possession of this site has become insofar as these two great tribal peoples are concerned. The Moslems say this spot was further sanctified to them in the seventh century A.D. when Mohammed told his followers that during a dream his soul was brought from Arabia to this place and that from here he ascended to heaven on a white horse.11 Mohammed said he met all of the major prophets mentioned in the Bible (including Jesus whom Mohammed said was a great prophet) and that afterwards God personally instructed him as to the manner in which Moslems were to live and worship. Mohammed said the white horse then brought him back to Jerusalem. This is an additional reason why Jerusalem thereupon became, and has ever since remained, one of the most sacred shrines of devout Moslems.

During one of the United Nations sessions on Palestine, the Israeli representative pointed out that the Jews must have access to Jerusalem since otherwise they cannot mandate from God to rebuild the temple. The Arab representative promptly replied with great vehemence before Moslems permitted the Jews to disturb that spot where the Dome of the Rock is located, there be Jehad -- Holy War!

Because Ishmael is looked upon by the Arabs as their great patriarchal ancestor, they memorialize the important events of his life. For example, at Mecca the second most sacred shrine to all Moslems, is the famous well, the Zam-zam, where they believe the angel of the Lord miraculously provided water to save the life of Ishmael and his mother, Hagar.

Another incident in the Bible which is a bone of contention between Arabs and Jews is the occasion when Jacob took away Esau's birthright. It will be recalled that Isaac had twin sons, Jacob and Esau. Esau was the elder but he sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage.12 By subterfuge Jacob subsequently obtained the birthright blessing from his father.13 Eventually, the disinherited Esau married a daughter of Ishmael14 and his descendants thereafter mingled with the seed of Ishmael to create the princely kingdom of the Edomites, the first Arab nation. Jacob went on to have twelve sons, one of whom was Judah, ancestor of the Jews. Modern Arabs say that just as Jacob cheated Esau, so today Jacob's descendants are trying to cheat Esau's descendants out of their birthright.

From these examples it is easy to appreciate why some Arab antagonisms toward the Jews are not a superficial or recent development but go back to their interpretation of events which occurred almost 4,000 years ago.

THE MOSLEM REJECTION OF JEWISH PROPHECY

Of course, in the Bible (which Moslems accept as a sacred book) it is very clear that the Jews, after their long dispersion, must return to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. How will the Arabs deal with that? They have an answer. They say those are true prophecies but they were all fulfilled 1,400 years ago!

They point out that when the Jews were captured by the Babylonians in a series of attacks which culminated in the destruction of Solomon's temple and the sacking of Jerusalem (587 B.C.), that was the dispersion of the Jews the Bible was talking about. All the survivors of that great destruction were hauled off to Babylon and assigned to a number of colonies. However, when Persia conquered Babylon, the great Persian ruler, Cyrus, allowed the Jews to gather again and return to Jerusalem. In due time they rebuilt their temple (admittedly not as fine as Solomon's but they did rebuild it) and it was finished in 516 B.C. This, the Arabs say, put the Jews back in Palestine as God had promised them. However, according to the Moslems, the Jews did not remain true to God's commandments. Therefore they were conquered -- first by the Greeks, then by the Syrians, finally by the Romans. In 70 A.D. the Romans besieged Jerusalem and eventually drove the Jews forever from that place. The Arabs say this was God's punishment. Because of their wickedness He disinherited the Jews and left all their lands to be taken over and cared for by the Arabs.

They further point out that in the days of the Crusades the Christians tried to take Palestine away from the Arabs but God blessed Saladin and his Arab warriors with victory. They say that now the Jews are trying to take Palestine again, but God will utterly desolate them through the vengeance of Arab arms. In the eyes of the believer, eventual destruction of Israel is inevitable.

This will explain why the Arab leaders call their war to exterminate Israel a Jehad. It is a holy war to fulfill the will of Allah. Consequently, Nasser and his associates in the Arab League reason that no Arab nation should give diplomatic recognition of Israel or give her the least excuse for thinking she will enjoy a permanent peace. There has been some heated discussion among the Arabs as to just how the Jews should be exterminated. Nasser has insisted that there should be a massive buildup of arms and devastating modern weapons so that Israel can be wiped out in one mighty blow of total destruction. The Syrians, on the other hand, have contended that Israel should be worn down with terrorism and guerilla warfare along her borders. Actually, the Arab leaders have tried both.

9. Anthony Nutting, The Arabs, New York, Mentor Books, 1964, pp. 26-27.10. Ishmael consistently appears before Isaac in the Koran and is presented as the confidant of Abraham in establishing Mecca, building the Kaaba or temple and setting up this center as a place of worship for all true believers. See the Koran II:133, 136, 140; IV:163; VI:87; XIV:39; XIX:54ff; XXI:85; XXXVIII:49.11. Anthony Nutting, The Arabs, p. 29.12. Genesis 25:29-34.13. Genesis, Chapter 27. For a commentary on this incident see W. Cleon Skousen, The Third Thousand Years, pp. 39-44.14. Genesis 28:8-9.

AussieOiI see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also

Aussie, I have always thought that those who witness Christ’s appearance on Mt Olivet and the destruction of 4/5ths of the army of Gog would convert to Christ. How could they not? Even the 1/5th remaining would be converted and return to their home countries. Is this how the gospel goes to the Muslims? This event could be a uniting of the Jews and Muslims finally after centuries of hatred when both people find out they were wrong.

As far as Abraham's Covenant, my reading of the scriptures and Church literature shows that it went to Isaac and then Jacob. Do you have scriptures that may indicate otherwise?

If you are finally admitting that this is to be the case when Jews are purged by the Lord and are to be converted personally by the Lord, why in the world do you keep regurgitating the warmongering propaganda of our establishment?

AussieOi"I see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also"

OMD:"Aussie, I have always thought that those who witness Christ’s appearance on Mt Olivet and the destruction of 4/5ths of the army of Gog would convert to Christ. How could they not? Even the 1/5th remaining would be converted and return to their home countries. Is this how the gospel goes to the Muslims? This event could be a uniting of the Jews and Muslims finally after centuries of hatred when both people find out they were wrong.As far as Abraham's Covenant, my reading of the scriptures and Church literature shows that it went to Isaac and then Jacob. Do you have scriptures that may indicate otherwise?"

InfoWarrior82 If you are finally admitting that this is to be the case when Jews are purged by the Lord and are to be converted personally by the Lord, why in the world do you keep regurgitating the warmongering propaganda of our establishment?

InfoWarrior please cite for me where I “keep regurgitating the warmongering propaganda of our establishment?”

If you are referring to my posting of events that are occurring in the Middle East then what is wrong with the truth? It is up to each of us to learn and read what is going on then make decisions from it. The more sources for info we research the better equipped we are to make an informed decision on facts not distortions or fiction.

God has promised and has taken an active part in the Jews returning to the Holy Land, establishing a nation there, rebuilding Jerusalem and who will soon build the 3rd Temple on the Temple Mount. God has told us that the world will hate Judah, go to war against her and attempt to destroy them. God has promised that He will fight for them through two witnesses and in the end just before their destruction He will send His Son down to destroy Judah’s enemies. IMO many of the Jews will be converted during the 3 ½ years of war and build their temple then. The rest of the Jews and the remnant of the Islamic army will convert when they see the Savior split Mt Olivet and save the Jews. How will the Jews and Muslims deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Jew’s promised Messiah and Islam’s Mahdi? IMO that is when they will repent of their centuries long hatred for each other and join with us in worshiping Jesus Christ and His Father.

This is all in the scriptures InfoWarrior. Why be surprised I believe it?

AussieOi"I see nothign here that suggests Palestinians or other people there won't accept Christ. Indeed I HOPE so.God is NOT a respector, and ABrahamic Covenant iextends to his son Ishmael as I understand also"

OMD:"Aussie, I have always thought that those who witness Christ’s appearance on Mt Olivet and the destruction of 4/5ths of the army of Gog would convert to Christ. How could they not? Even the 1/5th remaining would be converted and return to their home countries. Is this how the gospel goes to the Muslims? This event could be a uniting of the Jews and Muslims finally after centuries of hatred when both people find out they were wrong.As far as Abraham's Covenant, my reading of the scriptures and Church literature shows that it went to Isaac and then Jacob. Do you have scriptures that may indicate otherwise?"

InfoWarrior82 If you are finally admitting that this is to be the case when Jews are purged by the Lord and are to be converted personally by the Lord, why in the world do you keep regurgitating the warmongering propaganda of our establishment?

InfoWarrior please cite for me where I “keep regurgitating the warmongering propaganda of our establishment?”

If you are referring to my posting of events that are occurring in the Middle East then what is wrong with the truth? It is up to each of us to learn and read what is going on then make decisions from it. The more sources for info we research the better equipped we are to make an informed decision on facts not distortions or fiction.

God has promised and has taken an active part in the Jews returning to the Holy Land, establishing a nation there, rebuilding Jerusalem and who will soon build the 3rd Temple on the Temple Mount. God has told us that the world will hate Judah, go to war against her and attempt to destroy them. God has promised that He will fight for them through two witnesses and in the end just before their destruction He will send His Son down to destroy Judah’s enemies. IMO many of the Jews will be converted during the 3 ½ years of war and build their temple then. The rest of the Jews and the remnant of the Islamic army will convert when they see the Savior split Mt Olivet and save the Jews. How will the Jews and Muslims deny that Jesus is the Christ, the Jew’s promised Messiah and Islam’s Mahdi? IMO that is when they will repent of their centuries long hatred for each other and join with us in worshiping Jesus Christ and His Father.

This is all in the scriptures InfoWarrior. Why be surprised I believe it?

Then maybe you're not watching the news where everyday they use this kind of news to sell us that we must go to war? I just hope that's not your intention here.

The Jews will continue to do their thing and the Muslims will continue to do their thing until Christ will personally step in. It says no where in the scriptures that the U.S. is going to be the heroes and rescue the Jews.

InfoWarrior:Then maybe you're not watching the news where everyday they use this kind of news to sell us that we must go to war? I just hope that's not your intention here.

Understanding the truth does not necessarily mean that you automatically want to go to war. The LDGs use half-truths to persuade for us to go to war. The naïve pacifists use half-truths to allow evil to spread “while good men do nothing”. With the whole truth you can determine for yourself what is right and what path to support.

The Jews will continue to do their thing and the Muslims will continue to do their thing until Christ will personally step in. It says no where in the scriptures that the U.S. is going to be the heroes and rescue the Jews.

The scripture say we DO NOT help the Jews in the end. It’s either because we have a president like Obama who supports the Muslim Brotherhood or we are unable to help.

InfoWarrior:The Jews will continue to do their thing and the Muslims will continue to do their thing until Christ will personally step in. It says no where in the scriptures that the U.S. is going to be the heroes and rescue the Jews.

The scripture say we DO NOT help the Jews in the end. It’s either because we have a president like Obama who supports the Muslim Brotherhood or we are unable to help.

We won't be around. If you agree with that, than I see these posts as nothing more than fear mongering. Why aren't you more interested in and more outraged at the fact that our government put the underwear bomber on the plane as a false flag? Where's your enthusiasm and anger with Fast & Furious false flag designed to tear down the 2nd amendment? Where's your enthusiastic anger over the "Federal" Reserve who have been robbing us blind since 1913? I could go on and on.

I'm not concerned with the threat of jihad. I'm concerned with our own government.

I'm so glad that President Packer was willing to speak out regarding Islam -- here is what he said in October 2006:

Building Bridges of Understanding: The Church and the World of Islam President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter‐day Saints, gave this introduction of Dr. Alwi Shihab prior to Dr. Shihab's forum address at BYU on 10 October 2006.

…Ahead of us, indeed already all around us, is the world of Islam. Christianity and Islam will clasp hands in cooperation and understanding or clench fists in confrontation and prejudice….

The Doctrine and Covenants has this very interesting prophecy: “For after your testimony cometh the testimony ofearthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand.“And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds” (D&C 88:89–90; italics added).

Knit together by world history and by Old Testament history and doctrine, the Church and the Islamic world can see each other as People of the Book, indeed Family of the Book.

The First Presidency called a special fast for funds to aid the victims of the tsumani. The money flowed in—several million dollars. Part of our purpose in traveling to Indonesia was to review the significant Church humanitarian relief to those hardest hit. The assistance began flowing immediately, and it continues today.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints expresses “special love and concern for the eternal welfare of all men and women, regardless of religious belief, race, or nationality, knowing that we are truly brothers and sisters because we are sons and daughters of the same Eternal Father.”1

We believe that “the great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals.”2 [Statement of the First Presidency, February 15, 1978]

It is important that we in the West understand there is a battle for the heart, soul, and direction of Islam and that not all Islam espouses violent jihad, as some Western media portray. It is as well important that friends in the Islamic world understand there is a battle for the heart, soul, and direction of the Western world and that not all the West is morally decadent, as some Islamic media portray.

Church members and Muslims share similar high standards of decency, temperance, and morality. We have so much in common. As societal morality and behavior decline in an increasingly permissive world, the Church and many within Islam increasingly share natural affinities. Muslim scholars point out that the Quran does not restrict Paradise to Muslims. The Quran rewards all those of faith who perform righteousness and believe in the after-life. The Book calls Jesus Christ Messiah, Son of Mary, and by the names Messenger, Prophet, Servant, Word, and Spirit of God.4

Alwi, a devout Muslim of Arabic ancestry, and I, a Christian and devout Mormon, have agreed to symbolically walk arm in arm into the future. Together we hope to build a bridge. Except what that symbolizes is accomplished, all of us face a very dark and very dangerous future.

I agree 100% with President Packer!

saith the Lord... Is there not room enough on the mountains of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and on the plains.. where Adam dwelt, that you should covet that which is but the drop, and neglect the more weighty matters? D&C 117

I have never heard of the Church or the GAs in Conference Talks, Manuals, magazine articles, etc. ever criticizing any other church or religion. I would be very disappointed if they did. How can you criticize another religion and at the same time try and apostelize among them? It would do no good to criticize Mohammed as a false prophet as well as Confucius, Ellen G. White, and others.

The Title of this thread is” Fanatical Islam” which alludes to the fact of there being a non-Fanatical Islam which I have never denied. I have stated in other posts that it is the Jihadists and fanatical Muslims who have hijacked their religion to preach hate and violence against the innocent. As the “Palestinian” people are victims of their fanatical leaders so are the good Muslims who have been corrupted by those evil religious leaders who twist the words of Mohammed and use the post-Mohammed hadith, to turn a religion into a death cult where you can receive salvation by killing others. Thankfully not all have succumbed to these wicked teachings and some brave Islamic leaders have even come out to criticize those who have. Unfortunately these are few and have been not been given as much air time as the more vocal fundamentalist Islamists have.

Canadian documentary filmmaker Martyn Burke did a documentary for PBS about how moderate Muslims are being silenced and intimidated by Islamist extremists entitled “"Islam vs. Islamist". Not surprising that P.C. crowd at PBS spiked the show before it was aired. Here is a clip:

Here is an interesting and informative article from the Ensign by Hugh Nibley a scholar of the ancient world and Old Testament:

The late great Classical scholar Werner Jaeger once said that the only time the lectures of the immortal Eduard Meyer were really interesting and the only time he was ever able to fill his lecture hall at the University of Berlin was when he talked about the Mormons.

Eduard Meyer was the last mortal to attempt single-handed a history of the Ancient World; others before him had written monumental histories of antiquity, “but never before had such work been undertaken by anyone with a comparable preparation.”1 “He had a special preference for the history of religion which never left him, from his dissertation (at the age of twenty) to the great work of his old age,”2 and that is why in 1904 he spent a year in Utah; he was convinced that “Mormonism … is not just another of countless sects, but a new revealed religion. … What in the study of other revealed religions can only be surmised after painful research is here directly accessible in reliable witnesses. Hence the origin and history of Mormonism possesses great and unusual value for the student of religious history.”3

In particular, “Mormonism,” he writes, “excited my interest at an early age before all else because of the surprising analogy, extending even to the smallest details, between it and the fundamental drives, external forms, and historical development of Islam: here one might hope to discover significant clues for a proper understanding of Mohammed and his religion. … there is hardly another historical parallel as instructive as this one. … It is impossible to undertake the scholarly investigation of the one without a closer acquaintance with the other.”4

It would be foolish not to take advantage of the spade-work already done by so competent a researcher as Meyer. Let us consider then the points on which he believes the Moslems and Mormons to be most alike and on which they differ. At the outset, the resemblances pointed out by Meyer are quite superficial, while the differences are profound and fundamental.

First as to the likenesses: Islam owed its impact on the world and its great appeal to its followers to the electrifying announcement that God had again spoken from the heavens and that after 600 years of silence the voice of a prophet was again heard in the land. It was this announcement that aroused the scorn and derision of the world and brought down storms of denunciation and persecution on the head of that prophet. Here indeed is a closer parallel to the case of Joseph Smith; in fact, early Mormon leaders saw no reason why Mohammed should not be considered a true prophet, for there have been many prophets, great and small, in the past whose words are not in the Bible.

But the striking resemblance turns almost at once into an equally striking contrast when the Moslems announce that Mohammed is the last of the prophets and that there can be no prophet after him. “When a doctrine is sealed,” writes an eminent Moslem scholar, “it is complete, and there can be no further addition. The holy Prophet Mohammed closed the long line of Apostles. … there has been and will be no prophet after Mohammed.”5 Thus Islam ignored its one unique advantage over conventional Judaism and Christianity, the joyful tidings that God still speaks from the heavens through his prophets.

Upon learning about the Mormons, Moslems usually comment favorably on the resemblance between the Word of Wisdom and Moslem rules of abstinence; but again the parallel is weakened by the fact that only a small minority of Moslems, such as the strict and rigorous Wahabis, observe such rules. The toleration of more than one wife in both religions is based on quite different principles and at any rate has been of limited application in both societies. Both religions advocate high moral principles, but then so do most other religions.

Most fundamental are certain doctrinal traditions that, while found in the Koran, have been rejected by conventional Christianity and Judaism but have always been a part of Mormonism. Great emphasis is placed, for example, on the concept of dispensations, i.e., the restoration of prophetic gifts and divine authority after long periods of apostasy and darkness through the sending of a great prophet. This doctrine was necessary to justify Mohammed’s appearance as a new prophet but became a dead letter in Islam after his death.

The Koran tells how at a great council held in the heavens at the creation of the earth God set forth the plan of salvation, and how Satan rejected the plan, refused to bow to Adam, and was cast out of heaven by main force, falling to this earth, where he now undertakes to tempt the children of men during their time of probation here below.6 Such teachings enjoy great prominence in the newly discovered documents of the early Christian and Jewish saints and sectaries of the desert, documents of which Eduard Meyer knew nothing but which now go a long way toward explaining how the teachings got into the Koran.

Actually, these things belong to the mysteries of the Koran and have never meant much to Moslems. Meyer himself limits the resemblances between Mormonism and Islam to “fundamental drives, external forms, and historical development,” all of which are secondary to the real genius of a religion—what its followers really believe. As mentioned before, in Meyer’s work it is the differences between Islam and Mormonism that are most significant.

In the first place, Meyer, who feels quite at home with the great Moslem leaders, is puzzled and annoyed by the Mormons; he finds it “easier to reach a confident conclusion about Mohammed, Abu Bekr, Omar, than about Joseph Smith or Brigham Young, in spite of the relatively much greater amount of material surviving concerning the latter.”7 He can explain Mohammed as a human being, plagued with doubts and misgivings about the nature of his calling and the authenticity of his visions.

“For Joseph Smith, on the other hand,” he reports, “it is a most distinctive characteristic that any such sort of doubt or misgiving is utterly out of the question.”8 The biblical prophets annoy Meyer in the same way; since for him there is no such thing as revelation, he insists that “Jesus never claimed direct revelation … never had a vision … never once predicted future events.” The passages in the Bible that describe the Lord as doing such things Meyer simply attributes to later invention.

“It goes without saying,” Meyer decides, “that the Gospel of John is utterly worthless as a source,”9 and as for literal-minded prophets like Ezekiel, he simply loathes them. But the thing to notice is that Meyer puts the Mormon prophets in the same category with the deluded prophets of the Bible and in a very different category from Mohammed.

The intractable Joseph Smith “thinks of spiritual things in a far cruder and more materialistic way than Mohammed … all of his manifestations, visions, healings, ecstasies, etc., are quite everyday things to him and his followers. … For Mohammed on the other hand, the only miracle [the ‘sign’] is the revelation of the words of the divine book. … he forcefully denied possessing any of the other miraculous powers possessed by the ancient prophets …”10 The italics emphasize that Joseph Smith is again classified with the prophets of Israel and not with the prophet of Islam. “Both think of God as having corporeal form,” writes Meyer, “but Smith in his first vision sees God Himself, the Father and the Son, just as Moses and others saw him; while to Mohammed only the angel appears.”11 More italics reinforce the point.

While Joseph Smith taught “the continuation of direct prophetic inspiration, along with charismatic gifts of tongues, healings, etc.,” to be generally enjoyed whenever the true church is upon the earth, “the idea of any miraculous powers in the possession of his followers is utterly out of the question” for Mohammed.12 Again Joseph Smith is among the prophets: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works … shall he do. …” (John 14:12.)

“Mohammed was able to win the loyalty of men of such superior intelligence and high social standing as Abu Bekr and Omar … while Joseph Smith’s followers belonged almost without exception to the dregs of the people. …” Here one is reminded that in the early Jewish and Christian writings the followers of the prophets are regularly designated as “the poor,” because they really were the poor and outcast. But Mohammed was able “to command unswerving submission” of these followers, whereas “the first to follow [Joseph Smith] later fell away and were expelled from the Church.”13

Among those who maintained family and party loyalty to Mohammed were many who did not take him seriously as a prophet, and many soon found it to their temporal advantage to support him regardless of their beliefs. But Joseph Smith never had anything to offer his followers but the sure word of prophecy, and Meyer notes with wonder that there were those whom he “threw out of the Church” who never denied his prophetic calling.

It was, of course, the Book of Mormon that first suggested the parallel between its author and Mohammed, each of whom claimed to have given the world a divine book brought to him personally by an angel. But there all resemblance ends; the differences between the two books are as great as those between their authors. The Book of Mormon, though transmitted and translated by divine ministration, was an earthly book, written by the hands of men, as is all scripture, and hence apt to contain the mistakes of men. The Koran, on the other hand, is held by most Moslems to be “identical with the uncreated eternal Word of God that is written on the heavenly tablets; literally, not in any figurative sense. …” Even the ink, paper, and binding are accepted in the most literal sense as the Uncreated Word of God.14

The Book of Mormon is a history of the doings of very fallible humans, while devotees of the Koran disdain to attribute to it anything as banal as human history. While Joseph Smith “copies out the peculiar written characters of the holy book,” Meyer notes, “such a thing would never have occurred to Mohammed.”24 And whereas Joseph Smith “claims that he actually dug it up and kept it in his house … for Mohammed it always remains in the hands of the angel.”15

There is nothing like the testimony of the Three Witnesses to support Mohammed’s story, the Koran repeatedly and solemnly affirming that it is its own witness, and though Meyer naturally rejects the testimony of the witnesses out of hand, still it jars him. “The essential thing is, that this vision was for the Three Witnesses an absolutely real occurrence, on the complete and literal actuality of which none of them ever betrayed the slightest trace of a doubt. The opponents of the Mormons made every conceivable effort to get these men to retract their testimonies and to admit that there was a deception; but they remained unshaken, and continued to the end of their lives to affirm the truth of the revelation and the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. Far harder to explain is the testimony of the eight witnesses.”16

Since he will accept neither book as inspired, Meyer prefers the Koran to the Book of Mormon, because it took years of painful study to produce and it shows “a conviction won through genuinely strenuous mental effort, and even at times a poetic exaltation.”17

Naturally one prefers the work of a thinker and a poet to a big history turned out all at once by a very young man who is both ignorant and strangely devoid of misgivings: “… the vocabulary is exceedingly limited, except for the numerous peculiar words and proper names invented by the author, in which he gives his imagination free rein.”18

Mohammed, with his purely spiritual book, never takes the terrible risks that Joseph Smith does, though the Koran constantly flings out meaningless challenges. Meyer fails to appreciate that the Book of Mormon is a highly testable document, since for him there is nothing to test: there is no revelation, so there is no point to challenging any document, including the Bible, that claims it. While both the Koran and the Book of Mormon claim to be strictly in the biblical tradition, Mohammed, as Meyer observes, “has but a dim conception” of the Bible, and even the greatest Moslem scholars are astonishingly ignorant of the scriptures; in no way has the Book of Mormon supplanted the Bible as has the Koran.

The key to understanding both the likenesses and differences between Mormonism and Islam is to be found in the double nature of the latter, which draws from both “vertical” and “horizontal” traditions. Vertical Judaism and Christianity is that brand of religion that believed in the necessity of direct revelation, inspired leaders, charismatic gifts, the coming of a real Messiah and a real millennium; the predominance of such beliefs at an early time has become apparent from the oldest Jewish and Christian manuscripts, whose recent discovery has completely changed the picture of Christian beginnings.

Both Judaism and Christianity, it would now appear, began as charismatic vertical religions that were in time completely suppressed and supplanted by the horizontal or academic way of thinking, which holds that one should reverence only the tradition handed down horizontally from one generation of teachers and scholars to the next and that the complete religious life is comprised in the proper observance of established customs and the acceptance of officially approved doctrines. However, Islam arose in a time and place in which much of the old vertical attitudes of the desert sectaries (a person excessively devoted to a particular sect) still survived, but in which also the influence of the schoolmen was well established and on the increase. Hence the two elements mingle and impart a spirit of ambiguity and controversy to every Moslem discussion.

Since Islam’s debt to the early desert sectaries (such as those represented by the Dead Sea scrolls) has not yet been seriously studied, a few illustrations may be helpful. One evening in March of the year A.D. 620 Mohammed took a walk to the valley of Mina on the western outskirts of his hometown of Mecca, where some pilgrims were camping. Some of the campers were Jews—Chasraj from Yathrib in the north—who had separated themselves from the rest of their people, after the immemorial custom of the desert sectaries. They were looking for a prophet, and they accepted Mohammed as their inspired leader; the next year they returned and secretly entered a covenant to support him. Thus the Prophet’s first solid support came from the vertically minded sectaries of the desert.

At the same time he had his famous dream of journeying to heaven from the temple at Jerusalem and there meeting Moses, Christ, Abraham, John the Baptist, Enoch, and Aaron, and seeing Adam presiding as judge over the great assembly of all his children. These are the figures that dominate in the early apocryphal writings of the Jews and Christians—no wonder Mohammed’s Arabic relatives shook their heads in perplexity and doubt. And when Mohammed himself had serious doubts about the divinity of his calling, it was one of the sectaries who had read both the Old Testament and the New, his wife’s uncle Maraka, who told him that his visions were genuine and that he would be the special prophet to his people.

But the early Christian and Jewish traditions that survive in the Koran and in works by its early commentators came to the Arabs secondhand and were never really assimilated or understood by them. “No knowledge have I of the chiefs on high, discussing among themselves,” says Mohammed; “only this has been revealed to me: to give warning plainly and publicly.”19 That is, Mohammed has heard about the council in heaven, but he really knows nothing about it. So we are told of God’s plan, laid down at the foundation of the earth; and yet the plan is no plan at all, for punishment and reward have nothing whatever to do with individual behavior and all things happen—”don’t ask why or how” (bila kaif)—according to the imponderable will and pleasure of God.

Like the early Christians and Jews, the Koran is aware of the great importance of the rites and ordinances of the temple, yet the cult of Jerusalem was supplanted almost immediately by the more familiar and very ancient cult of Mecca. “Though Mohammed was in fact a charismatic leader,” after the manner of the early sectaries, according to a recent study, “… the concept of the charismatic leader had little part in the Qur’anic system of ideas.”20

Though the Koran recalls the marvelous works of God for and among the Chosen People, “Mohammed did not claim to be a saint, and deliberately renounced the doing of miracles.”21 He was not in the line of the great prophets, the restorers, all of whom spoke with the Lord face to face and whose ministries were marked by signs and wonders; he was, as Waraka said, “The prophet for this people (an-nabi li-hadhihi-l-’ummah).” He was a reformer and a great one, but he was not a restorer; of the things the Bible talks about he had, as Meyer observes, little or no understanding.

But if Islam came early enough to catch the last echoes of early Christianity and vertical Judaism, it also came late enough to find the schoolmen in complete control of the situation. The official theology of the church and the synagogue was that which the churchmen and the rabbis had learned from the University of Alexandria, and the Moslems lost no time falling in line, quickly producing a host of learned theologians whose mental and verbal gymnastics could put the Christian and the Jewish doctors to shame.

Their interpretations, imposed upon the more “primitive” teaching of the Koran, make every point of doctrine in Islam a disputed one. The mollahs (Muslims trained in law and doctrine) insist that Islam is the ultimate world religion and criticize other religions as being geographically limited and culturally conditioned; yet the ordinary Moslem boasts that no one can understand the Koran except a born Arab.

While the official theology constantly reiterates that Mohammed is the last of the prophets (a point not pressed in the Koran itself), a large part of the Moslem world looks forward to the coming of other prophets, notably the Mahdi, and has ever been eager to follow leaders claiming divine inspiration. Trying to reconcile the two views, A. Y. Ali writes, “God’s teaching is and will always be continuous, but there has been and will be no prophet after Mohammed.”22

If God can teach continuously without a prophet, why Mohammed? If God’s entire message could be put in a small book 1200 years ago, why not 2400 or 3600 years ago? If men have needed prophets in the past, as the Koran itself pointedly asks, why not today? Though it was its vivid eschatology that gave Islam its great initial appeal (as it did Christianity and Judaism), Islam, like its sister religions, has become particularly weak in the field of eschatology: Mohammed now turns out to be a prophet who does not prophesy.

Constantly repeating the old formula of the sectaries, that God is gentle and forbearing, the Moslems early adopted a policy of conquest by force and have ever been imbued with the polemical and party spirit that has kept the doctors of all religions divided and squabbling through the centuries.

The same ambivalence is apparent in the attitude to the Koran. Hailed as “the book that makes things clear,” in a world in which the rabbis and the doctors of the church could never agree among themselves about their own scriptures, the Koran soon turned out to be an object of even greater disagreement than the Bible, while many Moslems point to its supreme obscurity as a sign of its divinity. There are as many conflicting commentaries on the Koran as there are on the Bible, and as many conflicting sects claiming its true interpretation: one of the most famous hadiths or sayings attributed to Mohammed is that “there are seventy-seven sects in Islam (already in his day) and all but one are for the burning!”

It is claimed that the Koran eschews the arts of rhetoric for the plain, simple language that can be grasped by one and all, yet in the teaching of the Koran the principal emphasis has always been on i’rab, correct pronunciation, with the insistence that it is more important to pronounce the words with the correct enunciation and the proper tone of voice than it is to understand what they mean.

The Koran claims to be the complete and final word of God, yet the doctors of Islam have handed down tens of thousands of hadiths, that is, things that Mohammed is reported to have said or would have said (according to them) to clarify and extend the teaching. The Koran declares that no amount of intellectual effort will avail in understanding the word of God, yet it was the Moslem teachers who first turned wholeheartedly to Aristotle to find an answer to theological questions, and it was from them that the scholastic philosophers of the medieval church later took over.

The central theme of Moslem as of Christian theology is the nature of God, and while the Moslem doctors boast of being free of the contradictions and obscurities that have ever marked the course of trinitarian theology, their wholehearted acceptance (along with the Christians and the Jews) of the God of the Alexandrian school-men—absolutely, exclusively, totally, inconceivably one—soon got them into even worse predicaments than the Christian theologians.

Thus the Moslem doctors have often noted that a God who is totally incomprehensible leads straight to atheism and idolatry (as among the Sabaeans); yet incomprehensible he must be if he is to be absolutely unique, unapproachable, indescribable, totally unlike any other thing—and he must be all those things if he is to be the Only One: there can be nothing like him.

Even to imagine God as having any “partners” of any kind sharing his nature and his activities is the great crime of shirk; he does all things himself without the need or wish for any helpers—yet the Moslem creed requires belief in God, his angels, his prophets, his apostles, his books, i.e., with a whole host of agents through whom the all-sufficient God somehow operates in his dealings with men. And while it is wicked to think of man as having anything whatever in common with God, still man is supposed to love him, yearn to be with him, seek the reward of gazing upon his face, and in the end become completely identified with him, one with whom he can have nothing in common!

It is outrageous blasphemy to think of a Son as participating in his glory and power; how much worse, then, to conceive of other and lesser beings existing beside him—man’s very existence is a crime: yet the Moslem theologians admit that man exists, along with a lot of other not so glorious things. For though God alone created all things, and though he is perfectly good and does only what he wants to do, the doctors insist that evil is a reality and that the world is full of it. The problem of evil goes thus unanswered.

The idea that God might have children is utterly abhorrent to the Moslems: we are not his children but things that he has created out of nothing; but he created us with tragic weaknesses in our nature: this anomaly leads to the fatalism and cynicism of an Omar Khayyam.

The Koran hails Jesus as a true prophet and a great one, yet Moslem theology rejects all his teachings about the Son of God as false; it teaches that Mary was “the woman of truth” who conceived Jesus by the Holy Ghost and bore him when she was still a virgin, yet it deplores the idea that God should have a Son.

A well-known teaching in Islam is that “we come out from God and to him we shall return.” This has led to much controversy among Moslem theologians. How can we go from and return to him if he is everywhere? In nothing is the dual tradition of Islam more apparent than in the division of its great teachers into two main schools, one of which insists on a completely formless and incomprehensible God while the other teaches of a God who has a body just like a man’s. The former asks: “Can God have any attributes whatever without completely destroying belief in his invisible, unchanging Oneness?”23 Yet a famous teacher of the other school, Abu Amir, “would slap on his own thigh and say [commenting on Sura 68: 42], ‘God has a real thigh, just like this one here!’”23

The Koran can define God in terms of the schools and then go right on talking about him as a real person. It can tell us that men are lost or saved by his good pleasure alone and through no act of theirs and then insist that all men are individually responsible in all things. It swears by the Bible, which it never reads, and knows nothing of the Messiah. The Moslems insist that nothing whatever can be known about God and then fill libraries with treatises on his true nature. It is outrageous presumption for anything to exist beside him, they say—yet here we are. He created absolutely everything that is out of his own perfect nature, and yet the world is full of evil.

Ability to live with such basic contradictions would seem to be a highly developed trait among the Arabs. “The Oriental is not a realist,” writes a famous Moslem scholar; “he is above all an idealist. He certainly hears and contemplates nature … but what he grasps is very soon altered, or rather stylized”; then he quotes P. Ricard: “Muslim art … turns away from the reality of existing things. It appears to reject all that binds it closely or remotely to the living world. It only permits the representation of inner, imaginary vues. …”24

The Arab sees what he wants to or as he wants it to be. The same type of licensed thinking is the hallmark of conventional Christian theology, and it was because Mormonism turned away from this theology of freewheeling symbol and fantasy that it was anathema to all the churches. For all its superficial resemblances to Islam, Mormonism is even farther removed from it than from sectarian Christianity.

AussieOi wrote:11- Zionism is a political idea that spread among a minority of European Jews who adapted to the European notions of ethnocentric nationalism and thus claims Jews of today should gather in Palestine and create a Jewish state because of discrimination in Europe. Socialist Jews and other Jews believed in fighting for equal rights. Zionists thought that anti-Jewish feelings in Europe serves their interests and thus even collaborated with racists. There was a transfer agreement between the third Reich and the Zionist movement. Zionists also lobbied Western governments not to take in European Jewish refugees so that they all go to Palestine.

I am just learning about this. I saw this video about The Transfer Agreement book:

LDSFreedomForum.com does not necessarily agree with all content on this forum. This is not an official site of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The views and content on this site reflect only the opinions and teachings of the authors of the respective content contained herein.